Bob Williams: Mitt's RomneyCare problem

Mitt Romney moves ever closer as the GOP's challenger to Barack Obama in the coming presidential election. To bolster his appeal among the noisy sects of the Republican Party, Romney has been running far to the right of where he was as governor of Massachusetts. This means he must attack the Affordable Care Act, which the GOP derides as "Obamacare." Romney's problem is that most of Obamacare is patterned after RomneyCare, which Mitt pushed through in Massachusetts.

Both plans offer marketplaces to provide coverage for consumers. RomneyCare offers four tiers of coverage; Obamacare offers five tiers. RomneyCare restricts what insurers can use to justify differences in premiums; Obamacare does exactly the same.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact.com service of the Tampa Bay Times concludes: "Both [plans] leave in place the major insurance systems: employer-provided insurance, Medicare for seniors and Medicaid for the poor. They seek to reduce the number of uninsured by expanding Medicaid and by offering tax breaks to help moderate income people buy insurance. People are required to buy insurance or pay a penalty, a mechanism called the 'individual mandate.' And companies that don't offer insurance have to pay fines, with exceptions for small business and a few other cases."

You would think Romney would be flattered by such imitation of his plan. He isn't. Romney has borrowed all the rhetoric devised during the Bush administration to attack Social Security and Medicare, and applied these to the Affordable Care Act. As with the attack on Social Security, he proposes "market solutions." He will clear the way for this by immediately doing away with the Affordable Care Act and the provisions already in place. He said, "If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from Obamacare for all 50 states. Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal Obamacare."

All of this will be replaced by block-grant funds to the states for Medicaid and the uninsured; by reform of the tax code to promote the individual ownership of health insurance; and by strengthening health savings accounts. Health insurance companies must love these proposals.

Evangelical Republicans may have an easier time than others in accommodating to Romney's about-face on health care. They, after-all, believe in the healing power of redemption. Perhaps Romney has seen the evil of his ways as governor of Massachusetts and is now asking forgiveness. Such sinners are always welcomed back into the fold.

Nonevangelical Republicans also may not find Romney's flip-flop something to worry about. After all, the primary campaign has not been about issues or, at best, has been about only one issue — who is the most Not-Obama candidate who can still prevail in November. Of the 11 candidates once in contention, most have shown it's not enough just to be Not-Obama. They must possibly be electable.

This is where Mitt Romney has pulled ahead of the pack. This is why the Republican primary campaign has been so weird; the only one of the 11 who excited no one is poised to be the Republicans' presidential nominee. There has been reluctant agreement that he is the most electable. Much ink, if not thought, has gone into explaining why Romney has failed to connect closely with the Republican base. None have pointed out that among the 11, Romney was, in his pre-primary incarnation, most like Barack Obama. Both matriculated at the same elite educational institution. Both agreed on a significant government role in bettering the lives of people. And their major disagreement would have been the role of government in regulating the financial industry.

In normal times presidential hopefuls can be expected to cater to the more extreme elements in their party during the primaries. Then they move back toward the center for the national election. The GOP has moved far to the right and for Romney to move back to a position attractive to independents may be an impossible straddle.

The health care debate is an excellent example of the problems Romney faces. Benefits of the Affordable Health Care Act continue to kick in. This year, insurers must see that at least 80 percent of their premiums go to benefits and quality improvements. These and many other benefits available now are listed on HealthCare.gov. As people become more aware of the benefits and cost savings of the law, and more removed from the political rhetoric surrounding it, they will be more reluctant to see the law repealed.

There remains the wild card of the Supreme Court challenge to the law, which the justices will hear this week. Unless he gets lucky and the court strikes down the law, Romney will be hard pressed to justify why he's against what he was once so adamantly for.

Bob Williams is a Millville rancher and a retired UCLA professor. His email address is wmsranch@hughes.net.